


Terminal

by manic_intent



Category: Deadpool (Movieverse)
Genre: Full spoilers, M/M, Post-Canon, That Postcanon AU where Wade and Nathan talk about their illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14750513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: Wade woke up to Cable picking up the used candy wrappers scattered around the living room. Staring muzzily at Cable as he reached under the coffee table for the disemboweled Kitkat remains, Wade asked, “Are we dead?”Cable didn’t even pause as he stuffed the Kitkat wrapper into a bag and scooped under the couch for the Milky Ways. “Nope.”“I feel like the Easter Bunny and the Freddo frog had sex and shat in my mouth.” Wade carefully unfolded himself from the pretzel he’d turned himself into on the armchair.





	Terminal

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [晚期](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14852480) by [this_is_war](https://archiveofourown.org/users/this_is_war/pseuds/this_is_war)



> Prompt: for revyl: Cable and Wade bond over their shared controlled terminal illnesses and how they've handled it.
> 
> Last of my tumblr prompts :3 Watching the film again tonight, so will probably have 1-2 more fics out over the weekend, then we'd see how much time I have for more.

Wade woke up to Cable picking up the used candy wrappers scattered around the living room. Staring muzzily at Cable as he reached under the coffee table for the disemboweled Kitkat remains, Wade asked, “Are we dead?”

Cable didn’t even pause as he stuffed the Kitkat wrapper into a bag and scooped under the couch for the Milky Ways. “Nope.” 

“I feel like the Easter Bunny and the Freddo frog had sex and shat in my mouth.” Wade carefully unfolded himself from the pretzel he’d turned himself into on the armchair.

This got a snort as Cable moved the couch away from the wall to get at the wrappers. “Probably close. You ate several bowls of candy. That we were _meant_ to be giving away to children.”

“Settle down, Terminator Bernie. Costumes and eating candy is in the spirit of Halloween. _Giving away_ candy is not. Ugggh. I shouldn’t have eaten that whole bowl of candy corn. Candy corn is a trap. An evil, beautiful, neon striped trap.” As Cable moved the couch back into place, Wade tried to curl up deeper into the armchair. “Why’re you even doing that?”

“You want us to share our place with roaches and ants?” 

“You got something against our emergency rations?” 

Cable shot him an incredulous look. “What the fuck.” 

Wade snickered. “I meant. You have superpowers that let you move things without having to lift a pinky. If _I_ had TK, you’d have to surgically remove me from the couch.” 

“Exactly.” 

“What do you mean, ‘exactly’? You’re lazy, that’s what you are. I’ve been waiting all this time for you to go through a manpain training sequence where you wear formless grey tracksuits and weep while you tap into a meaningful childhood memory to unlock your supersaiyan mode and I got to say, I’m dying of old age here.” Wade sucked in a deep breath. 

Cable shuffled off to bin the wrappers. “I don’t use my powers unless I really have to. They keep this in check.” He gestured at the metal-flesh seam on his throat. 

Wade sat up with a frown. “How the hell does that even work? You have TK and TP, not a healing factor. God I hate this kinda writing. Next thing you know there’d be a story arc where there’s a clone of you with no virus whose TK is so powerful he can warp reality or something even though that makes literally no fucking sense.” 

“Special training,” Cable conceded, from where he was unpicking fake spiderwebs off the front door. He cracked a sharp smile. “No tracksuits and weeping.” 

“Handwavy shit like that gives me ulcers.” Wade rested his chin on the back of the armrest, leaving a smudge of fake blood on the fabric. “What’s the problem anyway? Your virus thing looks awesome.” Wade had by now had several close consensual encounters with the infected bits of Cable’s body, and none of it was not-awesome. “You know what doesn’t look awesome? What _I’ve_ got.” 

Cable rolled the fake webbing into a ball and set it down on the shoe cabinet. “Mine’s terminal,” he said dryly.

“So’s mine. Remove the healing factor and I’m dead in days.”

Cable stared at the balled webbing, exhaled, and walked over to sit down on the couch, elbows leaning loosely over his knees. “Does everything have to be a fucking competition with you?” 

Wade frowned at him, mashing his cheek on the armrest. “Wow, someone’s tetchy.” 

Metal fingers clenched briefly into a fist. Cable exhaled. “Fuck you, Wade. Haven’t you noticed?” He motioned over his chest and shoulder. “It’s getting worse. When I sleep, I’m not using my powers. So the infection spreads unchecked. It’s been spreading all my life. Eventually it’ll reach my brain. Then I don’t know what’s going to happen.” 

“ _My_ ‘cure’ pre-fucked my brain.” Wade paused. “Depending on the arc you’re reading. Marvel continuity would give anyone with even a normal brain a headache, admittedly. Take you, for example. You look like you’re a million years old. So unless Russell was a bajillion years old when he killed your fam, doesn’t that mean there’s a younger version of you alive right now somewhere here?” 

There was a long silence. “Definitely not,” Cable said, blinking, then, “best not to think about it.” Which in Wade’s opinion was a cop out, if an unsurprising one. Nobody died in Marvel anyway, let alone of something as meh as old age. Not even of narrative logic. 

“It hasn’t already reached your brain? You have the light bulb eyeball.” 

“No.” 

Wade grumbled under his breath and sunk against the couch. “You’re not seeing the point. We both have terminal illnesses. Why does yours look cool, while mine makes it hard for me to walk out in public without having people cross the street to avoid me?”

“You went out yesterday. Didn’t see that.”

“Yesterday was Halloween. That’s the one day in the year where things are different.” Well, that and cons, but that was another story. 

Cable eyed him soberly. “That why you were so excited?” 

“What about it?” Wade asked, defensive. 

Cable rubbed a palm slowly over his face. “Okay. Shit. I’m not good at this. Look. You’re. The only person I’ve ever met. Who thought this—“ he gestured at his metal arm, “—looks ‘cool’. I’ve had knives drawn on me, I’ve been shot on sight, I’ve lost people who didn’t like knowing that I’m some kinda ticking bomb. That someday whatever I’ve got is gonna reach my brain and turn me into something else. Maybe all the way dead, maybe worse. 

“And I get it,” Cable said heavily. “Even without my powers, I’m dangerous. With them, if I’m out of control I know I’m gonna be some sorta natural disaster. I used to just roll with the punches. Pretend that I didn’t care. Took decades before anyone was willing to look past that and take a chance on me. On faith. That’s why I said you remind me of my wife.”

“She didn’t think the arm looked cool?” Wade asked skeptically.

“Nah. It scared her at first too. But she accepted it.” 

“I don’t… I don’t get that.” Wade disentangled himself and sat down on the couch, prodding the coppery sinews on the underside of Cable’s arm. “This looks fully _sick_.” 

“Told you it is. It’s terminal.”

“I mean, you jackass, that it looks fucking awesome. I don’t understand anyone who thinks it doesn’t.” 

“And I don’t understand anyone who looks at this and thinks it’s something to be afraid of.” Cable drew Wade’s bared arm over his lap and rubbed his palms over the lumps over his wrist. “You sure it’s this and not the swords and the guns and the weird costume?”

“Hey, you leave my costume alone. I don’t want to hear a single word from someone who thinks ‘Post-apocalyptic Hobo’ is a Look.” 

“Technically—“

“Nope! Not a word.” Wade kissed Cable on the mouth as he tried to protest, and felt Cable start to laugh against him as he drew Wade onto his lap. “Maybe we both have a lot of issues to work out,” Wade said. Cable snorted, leaning in, stroking Wade’s thighs as they kissed until Wade’s post-Halloween downer was fading, until he was very nearly ready to kick the new day in the neck. 

“Wade.”

“What?”

“You really do taste like something died in your mouth.” 

Wade rolled his eyes. “Give me another kiss, you hopeless romantic.”

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent.tumblr.com  
> \--  
> Sala Baker, who plays older!Russell who murders Cable's fam, is 41 while Josh Brolin is 50 (and definitely looks older anyway). Given it's Marvel, it's entirely possible that older!Russell just found a way to become immortal/was de-aged into a baby and re-aged (seriously this plot point needs to stop being used) or something. Scott and Jean are still p much in their teens in Deadpool's timeline. Originally I thought maybe "Russell" was actually Bishop or another time traveller, and it was only after I read up on his character after the film that I realized Firefist was actually a separate character... Oh Marvel, what even. :3


End file.
